Serinbaal the Lands of Torment ("Dark Sun" Homebrew Pathfinder 1e)

Game Master Sebecloki

The 20% miss chance wont affect them as they dont make attack rolls. The damage doesnt affect them. But the vision component, while our doesnt really say, I would assume so. They have 200ft movement so they can just move towards ther center of the effects and blunder around until they get within 5ft of enemies

I think it's time for Hamza to go right?

What all is around Hamza? Seems like Myceloids, but I thought most of them on this side were dead?

There was a large group that flew over the party last round; you killed all the ones on the western side of the chamber, but the ones of the east flew over you to try to use their spores on everyone.

Oh, I thought there was only about 10 of them that spored us.

There are groups of them around each character -- it only has a certain range, so only a small group can effect each character.

Just a reminder to those nearby that 10' around Cae is spore-free due to Aura of Purity. And Cae is west of the position shown on map image.

I'll update the map tomorrow. I'm still recovering from a really nasty cold and I'm trying just to keep updating the games themselves.

I'll let Tyren go and then update for the villains.

I'm guessing we're still waiting on Tyren??

Yes

Sorry, guys, my B--Lemme get that post up.

Stripping away the apprentice's invisibility with invisibility purge activates their fear aura for everyone who can see them.

Stripping away the apprentice's invisibility with invisibility purge activates their fear aura for everyone who can see them.

luckily Miqeo is immune to fear

Have some other stuff to post later, but real quick question Seb,

Should we apply our re-works via the system unification to our characters now, or after this fight?

after

In the Dark Sun games, I'm laying plenty of connections to the Legacy of Fire AP -- the entire lore with the Red God and Ymeri is the equivalent of the efreeti villain in the AP. I can tell a lot of people are just ignoring the world building, but it's definitely there if attention is paid, and it's not my problem if people won't pay attention to the setting detail.

Seb posted this over in the Rise discussion, but I wanted to bring it over the actual game thread to talk about it:

I, for one, am very interested in the setting details. While I did join this game wanting to play the Legacy of Fire AP, I actually don't really care how much of that is still planned. The main reason I joined, aside from the awesome build rules which as let me play a character concept I've wanted to run for some time, is I rather love the Dark Sun world/setting.

I only discovered AD&D as that edition was sort of wrapping up, and transitioning into 3e. While I did play *some* AD&D, the vast majority of my D&D play has been under the d20 system since 3.0 debuted. Thus, I never really a got a chance to play in and experience a lot of the classic D&D settings.

I'm actually really excited to explore your version of Atahs, and everything you've built, even if it's greatly changed from the 2e days.

However, right now, we're 'stuck' in a massive battle, which is taking a lot of real life time to get through.

I know it's very hard to balance encounters for our crazy PCs, but you went from the extreme that was the lone foe of the scorpion droid to the opposite extreme of what I believe is well over 50 foes.

No matter how badass we are, without a lot of really strong AoE attacks(which aren't really all that possible at our level) it's going to take a lot of time to whittle down these massive numbers.

All this said, I don't think it's a case of people 'ignoring the world building/aren't paying attention to detail' as much as it is we've been in this dungeon for months of real life time, and there's still a ways to go before we're able to leave.

Meaning, we can't explore the world building or pay any attention to the details, because we're in place that doesn't really let us to do any of that....

Honestly the pacing of this all isn't what I was expecting -- I'm still getting used to the PbP pace and conventions even after a couple of years of doing this.

At this point, we're never getting beyond what I had originally planned as a side trek -- and I legitimately have a conversion of this AP in mind that I've been dropping hints about already throughout.

Here is my proposal -- we cut ahead to the right before the party gets to Kelmarane and I will write several 1,000 words in the voice of Slavathras explaining what happened. I'll summarize everything that's happened so far and another year or so (at this rate) of real life time to get through the Kalidnay story. That will be a good refresher on who everyone is, and clarify things since we've had so many drop outs and new starts. I think it will also make role playing easier in the future if we clarify who everyone is and give them some back story from the rest of the Kalidnay expedition I'll flesh out.

Truth be told, this strikes me as almost exactly how one should expect a larger D&D session to go. Even in live sessions, once you hit around 6 people, a full session becomes half an encounter. Oftentimes, you'd have something like 3 encounters between any significant plot-point. If you have a story consisting of 'party gets together, party takes job from employer, party discovers nefarious plot, party thwarts plot, party goes back to employer' that's a total of 5 plot points, with 3 encounters between, for 15 encounters, or 30 sessions, taking a total of 150 hours over the course of half a year.

And that's assuming every session happens as planned.

If everyone's happy with it im happy with it. I only just started in this game. I'm familiar with dark sun from the 3.0/3.5 conversions.

Truth be told, this strikes me as almost exactly how one should expect a larger D&D session to go. Even in live sessions, once you hit around 6 people, a full session becomes half an encounter. Oftentimes, you'd have something like 3 encounters between any significant plot-point. If you have a story consisting of 'party gets together, party takes job from employer, party discovers nefarious plot, party thwarts plot, party goes back to employer' that's a total of 5 plot points, with 3 encounters between, for 15 encounters, or 30 sessions, taking a total of 150 hours over the course of half a year.

And that's assuming every session happens as planned.

That's actually a criticism of the APs that I've read -- there are a bunch of filler encounters just to get enough xp for the next level that have almost nothing to do with the plot.

I'm increasingly thinking you have to dial back combat to a minimum for this medium -- pick very carefully when you have dynamic set piece battles for major bosses. I'm increasingly thinking you have to approach this more like the Numenera: Torment video game where talking is ALWAYS an option to resolve and/or advance.

This is a big decision if we want to skip ahead to something else, so I don't want to make any determination until I hear from everyone -- I think we should have a unanimous agreement about it if that's what we're going to do.

For my part, I'm getting kind of tired of this current combat. Realistically, I'm concerned that the entire campaign is going to be the Kalidnay ruins at this rate of play. Even if we speed up, we're going to have to massively truncate somehow my original concept.

If we skip ahead, there's nothing prevent a return to some of these locations/scenarios -- but with the caveat that we'd be going back with some background story already in play. For example, we might return to the Ymeri cult in the volcano (which is one of the things that hints at the main Legacy of Fire story), with the idea the characters had already visited it and done something there.

sounds good

Been thinking this over all weekend, and this my honest opinion:

Right now, we've hardly had any chance to utilize or showcase our ever increasing new abilities. No DM, no matter how good, is going to be able accurately create any sort of challenges for us with such a small sample.

Making matters worse is the several rebuilds we've undergone. Now, I was and am, in full support of unifying the rules for each of your games. However, each time we get that much more powerful, and then barely get a chance to put our abilities to test both as players as well as the GM seeing just what we can do, before another rebuild or rework is agreed upon.

Thus, I propose the following:

1) We finish this encounter. We're already in the thick of it, and if we're going to ever be able to truly judge what our PCs are capable of so you can better design encounters(be they combat, social, or otherwise) we're going to need to actually play out a few combats.

However, you're right about how bogged down and tiresome it's gotten. My suggestion to help speed it up is to have the two earth drakes assist in actually killing/destroying the myceloids and the turrets, leaving the mummies and the dread wraith to us PCs.

Don't just have them drop some rocks on them, unless said rocks kill them. Also, don't just have the myceloids suddenly disappear or be called away, as that's kinda lame.

I believe you have 3 rounds of actions you could have them take, to help us out.

2) Likewise, we finish off whatever else is in the ruins, as quickly as possible. I know, it's been a long time, and I'm sure we're all tired but I feel it would be a total disservice to all involved to just skip past all of this.

I'm not sure how much we have left, but hopefully we can wrap it up in the next couple of months(barring any real life situations that slow us down, and taking into account the holiday season).

3) No more rebuilds or reworks, regardless of who finds what new product on sale.

We all find new toys, but we need to put a stop to adding more and more to this game, mechanics/rules wise. It's already vastly complicated, so let's all promise to stick with what we have for the long foreseeable future.

Now, this does not mean Seb can't or shouldn't add more to the setting, nor does it mean he can't expand rules already present.

I just don't want somebody, Seb or otherwise, to find a new super awesome product in a month or three, and ask to incorporate some brand new something that will once more require a rebuild.

This should *probably* apply to all of your games Seb.

Also, this does not preclude leveling up or otherwise advancing in game. It just means no adding in or changing things up to such a degree that a rework or rebuild is required.

4) Once we complete this part of the game, we might wanna pause and consider all of our options going forward. Including how we want to handle future combats.

There's been a lot of talk about the setting, things we could do, and places to explore. We have all of those portals as well.

Obviously, this game at it's core is still the Legacy of Fire AP, but there's also just as obviously a lot going on beyond the scope of the AP.

We should begin to decide what all of us want out of this game, where we want to take our characters, discuss goals, etc.

Do we want to basically continue on with the AP? Or do we want to branch off, exploring other cities, meeting and working with other factions, traveling to locations beyond the Tablelands, etc?

I'm not sure what needed a response here -- I'm not going to skip ahead if everyone doesn't want to do that, and since you said you didn't, I'm not.

I'm trying to provide an option right now to move on from this combat. It's up to the party if they want to do that.

I don't want to skip the Arsione storyline as I think that will be defining for the character.

Missive is one-way?

I'm not sure what needed a response here -- I'm not going to skip ahead if everyone doesn't want to do that, and since you said you didn't, I'm not.

I'm trying to provide an option right now to move on from this combat. It's up to the party if they want to do that.

I would like to know if you agree with all of my proposals. Not all of them were specific to this one combat....

Missive is one-way?

Yes.

You send a telepathic message of up to ten words to any living creature within range. Missive is strictly a one-way exchange from you to the subject. If you do not share a common language, the subject “hears” meaningless mental syllables.

Reference

I - for one - think combats got too difficult and take too long.
On the other hand i don't want to skip combats.

Sebecloki wrote:

I'm not sure what needed a response here -- I'm not going to skip ahead if everyone doesn't want to do that, and since you said you didn't, I'm not.

I'm trying to provide an option right now to move on from this combat. It's up to the party if they want to do that.

I would like to know if you agree with all of my proposals. Not all of them were specific to this one combat....

I'm fine with the other stuff

Seb,

In all the craziness of the new unified system, I forgot a few things that may or may not have been discussed at one point or another:

1) Are we all supposed to be mythic tier 3 for this game?

Right now Hamza is level 6 in his base gestalt classes, level 2 in his PrC and mythic tier 2.

I thought I saw somewhere that we were all supposed to be tier 3, but I could be mistaken.

2) Aside from implementing the unified rules, are we going to be gaining any normal levels after this combat??

Again, I thought that might have been talked about, but I could easily be misremembering or confusing this with another game.

No more levels right now. As in the other games there was an exchange rate for levels vs. mythic tier. You're 6//6/3MR if you didn't pick the prestige class option. 6/6/3mr is the base assumption -- as we discussed you can make various exchanges with the levels and template CR.

I think that means Hamza is 6//6 2//2 (gestalt another prestige class), and 2//2 (MR -- gestalt another mythic path). I don't know how many CR of templates you have now, but you have potentially 6 to play with, as we discussed.

You can also up the base build to 108pts. on a 1-1 basis, which when you add everything on will be higher than what you have now.

Also, all the health rolls are max and double at first, and then double everything.

I was just about to ask about it we should gestalt our PrCs or not. Thanks for answering that as well.

Hamza and a few others have the HOPF Physical Paragon from bathing in the Red God's pool. That sets our physical scores to 18.

How should we apply the 108 to that?? Should we just build from there as normal? If so Hamza's stats will end up really high. I think I got his Dex to like 48, his Int and Wis to 38 and his Cha to 36...

The idea is that you started with straight 18s (or however you wanted to manipulate 108 points on a 1-1 basis, like 5s and 1 103). And any other bonuses are on top of that

The idea is that you started with straight 18s (or however you wanted to manipulate 108 points on a 1-1 basis, like 5s and 1 103). And any other bonuses are on top of that

Right, but you gave us Physical Paragon:

So, before I ever spend the 108, my physical stats start at 18, not 0.

My question is, do I build my stats from there normally? Spending all 108 points?

Should I only get half of 108, 54, even though I gained the feat after 1st level?

I interpreted it as you spend the 108 first & you probably don't want the feat if your character is physically dominant. Because it would reset your initial scores down to 18.

It only raises the value of you were below that. If you started with 36, then it does nothing. You have to decide what you level 1 build was and move from there adding on stuff.

It only raises the value of you were below that. If you started with 36, then it does nothing. You have to decide what you level 1 build was and move from there adding on stuff.

Well, that's nonsense. I never had a 'level 1 build'. Can I retroactively use Physical Paragon at level 1? I mean, it's a Horrifically Overpowered feat. It's supposed to break the rules.

The entire point is that it sets your physical stats to 18, and if you're using point buy, you can still increase them beyond that. You just normally have half the points.

If that's not going to the case, can I just trade it out for a different HOPF? Because otherwise, it's utterly useless, and you forced us to take take it of our HOPF slots, as opposed to it being a bonus feat.

Edit: Just so we're clear, I really don't care about actually having super high stats. The entire reason I said anything in the first place was because when I did the point buy of 108, and started with the three 18s from Physical Paragon, Hamza's stats were really freakin high.

I ended up with Str: 22, Dex: 48, Con: 22, Int: 38, Wis: 38 and Cha: 36.

Which, at our level is nonsense.

My main issue is it seems like Physical Paragon is useless with this new stat generation method. If that is actually the case, I would like to be able to trade it out for something useful.

You can trade it out if you want.

Please calm down with rules discussions. Every time we discuss something it's like you start shouting about whatever it is -- at least that's how a lot of your posts end up tone wise. You don't need to say stuff like 'that's nonsense' or I'm 'forcing' this or that or bold and italicized lots keywords.

I enjoy your play contributions but it frequently gets exhausting dealing with how over excited you seem to get about every rules issue when I'm mostly willing to discuss it or make some accommodation.

What I was really intending was for everyone to look up their starting stats. Without any modifiers. Then add on another whatever number of points brings that up to 108. You have that many more points to distribute on your stats. So if you had straight 15s, you have 18 more points to put on your stats.

You can trade it out if you want.

Please calm down with rules discussions. Every time we discuss something it's like you start shouting about whatever it is -- at least that's how a lot of your posts end up tone wise. You don't need to say stuff like 'that's nonsense' or I'm 'forcing' this or that or bold and italicized lots keywords.

I enjoy your play contributions but it frequently gets exhausting dealing with how over excited you seem to get about every rules issue when I'm mostly willing to discuss it or make some accommodation.

Sorry about that. Generally, when I embolden a word, it's merely to emphasize it, in order to help get the point across. I'm usually not shouting.

Also, those stats at our level is actually nonsense. I mean that in the most literal sense of the word. It makes no sense for our stats to be that high. Which is why I'm opposed to them.

I'll try to keep my tone my even going forward. Thanks for letting me swap it out.

Can you also please rewrite the rules stuff you wrote about wealth and weapons and stacking bonuses in a format I can use for a house rules document? I need to edit all this stuff together better and I don't really understand all the abbreviations and concepts very well.

Then Rokan's stats should go up quite a bit on the rebuild. I had to spend the feats to get all 18s and haven't progressed much further than that.

Sebecloki wrote:

It only raises the value of you were below that. If you started with 36, then it does nothing. You have to decide what you level 1 build was and move from there adding on stuff.

Well, that's nonsense. I never had a 'level 1 build'. Can I retroactively use Physical Paragon at level 1? I mean, it's a Horrifically Overpowered feat. It's supposed to break the rules.

The entire point is that it sets your physical stats to 18, and if you're using point buy, you can still increase them beyond that. You just normally have half the points.

If that's not going to the case, can I just trade it out for a different HOPF? Because otherwise, it's utterly useless, and you forced us to take take it of our HOPF slots, as opposed to it being a bonus feat.

Edit: Just so we're clear, I really don't care about actually having super high stats. The entire reason I said anything in the first place was because when I did the point buy of 108, and started with the three 18s from Physical Paragon, Hamza's stats were really freakin high.

I ended up with Str: 22, Dex: 48, Con: 22, Int: 38, Wis: 38 and Cha: 36.

Which, at our level is nonsense.

My main issue is it seems like Physical Paragon is useless with this new stat generation method. If that is actually the case, I would like to be able to trade it out for something useful.

you can take Physical Paragon after first level. It is entirely possible to build a character one level at a time, or to do so at least as pertains to feats and abilities. Make your base stats whatever you want, and then take Physical Paragon whenever you want. Put all 1s in physical stats. Who cares?

Can you also please rewrite the rules stuff you wrote about wealth and weapons and stacking bonuses in a format I can use for a house rules document? I need to edit all this stuff together better and I don't really understand all the abbreviations and concepts very well.

I'm not sure what exactly you need here from me Seb. Can you elaborate please?

You proposed some rules about wealth and crafting and stacking bonuses. The stuff I cut and pasted into the character build info is currently a forum post format addressed to other posts and people. I need a version of all this which is third person like a rulebook for someone looking at it in isolation from the discussion thread so it still makes sense by itself.

What I'm going to try to do as I've stated is make a 600+ page reference with all the collected rules. I then need to make a digest that summarises all that information to put on a campaign info page for character building.

Wealth: Double maximum. Dark Sun and Numenera, PCs are roughly CR 13. WBLx2 = 280,000gp. Items should be unique and interesting, not just stat boosts.

Legendary Item: Each PC gains a free Legendary Item per the universal path ability, which scales based on the tiers of the PCs. Each PC is considered to have taken the path ability 'for free' for each tier they posses.

Stacking bonuses: Bonuses of the same type(Profane, competence, insight, etc) from different sources stack. Ie, a deflection bonus to AC from a template stacks with a deflection bonus from a spell.

**********

I'm unsure what the CR for the Rise PCs should be. I I think roughly 8, maybe 10. I haven't done any sort of calculations however, mostly because I am in the midst of reworking Aleister.

To Tyren's question -- ooc knowledge: the droid factory below this cavern has a self destruct sequence which is like a miniature nuke; that's what he's referring to. He'll set it off if he thinks he really can't win.

Seb, this is going to sound harsh, but I'm truly not intending it to be such:

Do you honestly not care to run combats? I said above we really need to see this one through, so we as players as well as you as a GM can accurately gauge our capabilities, yet here we are on the verge of being able to talk our way out of the fight.

Which, is okay, I guess, but if that's truly the case, why bother with all of these epic rules? Why bother with rules at all?

I keep spending countless hours reworking Hamza, and then Aleister, not to mention having to make a PC for Numenera and Umbral Kobolds. I dearly want to be able to fight things with them. I want to see how successful my crazy builds are. I want to kill stuff. It's part of the fun of D&D for me, and I would assume at least some of the other players as well.

I get that the droid factory has a mini nuke, but you as the GM put that there, and you as the GM can opt to not actually use it. Or remove it. Or have it become disabled. Or malfunction.

It's incredibly frustrating to once again have a combat just suddenly end. The same thing happened vs the scorpion droid.

If running combats isn't your thing, then perhaps we need to just not have rules period, as that's pretty much their entire point.

You just said you were bored above -- decide which one it is.

If you want to keep fighting everyone needs to roll for the fear aura DC 48 since you just stripped off the apprentice's invisibility and so everyone can see them, and then re-roll again for all the myceloid spores, and then they'll do something after they see who's incapacitated by fear.